1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to loudspeakers, specifically to a device for mounting loudspeakers.
2. Description of Prior Art
The loudspeaker industry utilizes many different materials to mount loudspeakers. The purpose of these materials is to give the loudspeaker a rigid, resonance-free surface against which to exert the forces it generates while reproducing sound.
The most common material used for loudspeaker mounting is wood. The primary advantage of wood is low cost. It is also extremely easy to work with. However, it has several major downfalls. Wood has relatively poor hardness and rigidity. This makes it quite prone to flexing, compression, and vibration at low frequencies under the pressures exerted by loudspeakers during playback. It also has poor internal damping, or ability to dissipate internal energy, which results in its resonance modes being long in duration.
Various types of metal have also been employed for loudspeaker mounting. The biggest advantage for using metal is its excellent rigidity and hardness. However, metal is expensive and very difficult to work with. This raises its cost even further. Metal also has poor internal damping, giving it a tendency to ring when an internal resonance mode is stimulated. These resonance modes tend to be higher in frequency than those of softer materials.
Concrete is another material that occasionally gets used for the mounting of loudspeakers. It is inexpensive and falls between wood and metals for rigidity and hardness. Concrete also shows relatively good internal damping. However, it also has disadvantages. One is that it requires precise molding. The cost of the molds and the time that it takes to produce parts from them negates the advantage of low cost. Like metals, concrete is far more difficult to drill and machine than wood.
Various forms of polymer resins are also used for loudspeaker mounting. The cost of these materials is higher than wood or concrete, but lower than machined metal. The hardness and rigidity of these materials fall between that of metal and concrete. Workability of these materials ranges from nearly as easy as wood, to even more difficult than concrete. The drawback of the easily manipulated polymers is that they are also the softest, and least rigid of such materials. Like concrete, most polymers have good internal damping.